In the circumstances, after what they had endured, with ranks so thinned, against such opposition, it may be said, without calling upon superlatives or high-flown words, that none but troops of excellent quality would have gone forward at all. The troops of the 36th Division did much more than this. On the extreme right the 9th Irish Fusiliers, attacking from the Pommern Redoubt, pressed up across Hill 35, driving the Germans before them from the gun-pits on its forward slope. The 13th Rifles on their left advanced equally well. Somme, one of the strongest forts on the front, was passed by the leading wave, but the platoon detailed to take and hold it was unable to do so, though the rifle-grenade section strove gallantly to work round and take it in flank. The adjutant, Captain Belt, made an attempt to dig in in front of the place with a handful of men, but was severely wounded and fortunate in being able to crawl back to our lines. On the right of the 36th Division, the 16th had at first made good progress, but a counter-attack drove its troops back to their original line. From six o'clock onwards men began to fall back. Colonel R. P. Maxwell, commanding the 13th, seeing what was happening, led forward his battalion headquarters to a desperate attack upon Somme. He was unsuccessful, being himself severely wounded. It will be remembered that Colonel Maxwell, who had two sons on active service, had been wounded in Martinsart on the eve of the Somme attack. He was to reappear, none the less, in France in 1918. Colonel Somerville, commanding the 9th Irish Fusiliers, had already been mortally wounded. With the failure of Colonel Maxwell's forlorn hope, it may be said that the attack on the front of the 108th Brigade collapsed, though the 9th Irish Fusiliers made an effort to cling to the top of Hill 35.